That’s not entirely unprecedented—2023’s The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom retailed for $69.99 at launch—but that was treated as an outlier, and Nintendo’s subsequent releases returned to the $59.99 price point that’s been the industry standard for a few generations. Now, it’s looking like $69.99 might be the floor for a new Nintendo Switch 2 game, with the chance to go even higher for…reasons?
That new price range also, controversially, includes some games originally released for the Nintendo Switch, which are getting upgraded versions for the Switch 2. If Walmart can be believed, Switch 2 editions of games like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Kirby: The Forgotten Lands, and Super Mario Party Jamboree will also cost $79.99 apiece — a significant increase from the price Nintendo charged for the original versions of those games on the day they were released. The company softened the blow by revealing that those who already own those games can upgrade to the Switch 2 versions for a smaller fee, but it’s not clear what that will cost. (Sony, which offers a similar option for upgrading PlayStation 4 games to their PlayStation 5 versions, typically charges $10.)
How do gamers feel about all of this?
They’re not thrilled. During a second Nintendo livestream on Thursday, gamers spammed the chat with pleas to drop the console’s price. At the time of this publication, the various Nintendo Reddit pages are dominated by posts and memes about how much all of this is going to cost.
And remember: All of this was announced before the Trump administration revealed their tariff plan.
Okay. So what about the tariffs?
It’s hard to gauge the true impact of something that’s being implemented so haphazardly in real time, but no one in the game industry thinks it’s going to bring prices down. The Trump administration has imposed massive tariffs on electronics manufacturing hubs, including China (34 percent), Vietnam (46 percent), and Cambodia (49 percent). The goal, nominally, is to incentivize more manufacturing in the United States, but absolutely no one seriously believes Nintendo will respond by moving Switch 2 production to the United States.
So how will they deal with the higher costs? There’s a chance the company will offset the cost of the tariff by raising the price of the Switch 2 in the United States to something even higher $449.99. But that would risk a consumer backlash, and it’s not uncommon for a video-game company to sell a console at a loss, trusting that the cost of games will make up for the difference in the long run. One expert told IGN they suspect Nintendo had a variety of price points in play for the Switch 2, delaying the announcement until the latest possible moment as they tried to game out the impact of the Trump tariffs. Another expert told 404 Media that the tariffs “will definitely increase prices further over what is baked into price levels currently,” and that demand for the Switch 2 will be so high across the globe that Nintendo has no incentive to give the United States preferential treatment by absorbing the full weight of the tariff’s cost.
There’s no question that Trump’s tariffs are supercharging the conversation, but in recent years, the increasing cost of AAA game development has led to plenty of chatter about whether a $59.99 price point for new games is too low. According to industry analyst Matthew Ball, some developers are hoping that Rockstar launches its highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI at a price point between $80 and $100, which could help to normalize a higher price point for major releases, if not all games, across the entire industry. The bottom line is that the cost of gaming—like the cost of pretty much everything—is likely to increase in the near future. The question is how much, and we probably won’t know the answer until the full consequences of the Trump tariffs have played out.
One thing is for sure: Nintendo would definitely prefer we were all talking about how excited we are for a new Mario Kart right now.